Sea ‘giving us surprises’ as 2025 is declared year of the octopus

Record numbers of sightings of one of the world’s most intelligent invertebrates over the summer have led the Wildlife Trusts to declare 2025 “the year of the octopus” in its annual review of Britain’s seas.

- Lisa Bachelor

A mild winter followed by an exceptionally warm spring prompted unprecedented numbers of Mediterranean octopuses to take up residence along England’s southwest coast, from Penzance in Cornwall to south Devon.

“The scale of the catch [recorded by local fishers] was of the order of about 13 times what we would normally expect in Cornish waters,” said Matt Slater, a marine conservation officer at Cornwall Wildlife Trust. “When we added up the numbers, approximately 233,000 octopuses were caught in UK waters this year - that’s a huge increase from what you would normally expect.”